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July 10, 2014

Special Report: Dick & Harry

Steve Byrne of The Detroit Free Press joins Mike on this special documentary double feature episode. We discuss a pair of films that look at two amazing actors, Harry Dean Stanton and Dick Miller.

This episode features interviews with Sophie Huber, director of Harry Dean Stanton: Partly Fiction and Ejijah Drenner, director of That Guy Dick Miller, as well as a discussion of the new Documentary Podcast from The Freep Film Festival.

1 comment:

I listened with great interest to your report about the HD Stanton film and was amazed at your review. A friend and I watched the film a few nights ago and came to a conclusion almost 180 degrees to yours and your guests.

First I would suggest watching the short piece Harry Zen Stanton that is included on the Criterion Blu-Ray of Repo Man. In that short you will see HDS basically say almost note for note the exact same things he does in the new film. We came to the conclusion that when HDS has little respect for his questioner he tends to give a standard shpiel and treats said interviewer with almost obvious contempt.

When he is interviewed by Lynch in the new doc he seems very different and much more forthcoming and you can tell that he respects him and would probably even answer questions about his upbringing and what got him out of KY!

Then there is all the singing.....OY! Come on...you can tell that allowing him to perform had to be a condition of getting him to participate. I enjoy a few songs by the guy, but if I wanted to see the HDS concert film...well that's something very different. I mean this is a guy who believes he's been in 250+ films and aside from a lot of time on clips from around 2% of those films, a few minutes of scenes involving his famous friends talking about the good old days, a few interview snippets with HDS and a night out with him at Dan Tana's, it really seems like a vanity project dealing with a wannabe singer who doesn't want to deal with the kind of stuff most viewers are really interested in.

I think a MTV-ish standard doc would have been the way to go with someone as prolific as HDS, and then maybe later give us something this stylized. I was hoping for something more akin to the Warren Oates doc found on the Cockfighter dvd, and less of Lynch One or it's like. But of course that's just a couple of guys' opinion! I like to watch a film I'd want to see again. basically I was bored with the HDS doc and have no desire to ever watch it again.....Still your episode gave me food for thought, but in thinking about it I come to the same conclusion.

Thanks again for the great work you and your partner do. I remain a loyal listener!